A Very Perfect Gentle Knight
by xahra99
Summary: Morrigan asks Alistair to perform a ritual with her, and he accepts. Mature content. Contains spoilers. One shot. Complete.


A Very Perfect Gentle Knight

A Dragon Age: Origins fan fiction by xahra99

Morrigan sat cross-legged on the bed and waited for the knock on the door.

She had finished the preparations for the ritual nearly an hour before. The ceremony was old, and like many old things, it had been pared down to the essentials. All Morrigan had needed was chalk, a flat surface and a willing partner. The first two had been easy to arrange. The third had been considerably more difficult.

She rose from the bed and adjusted the rug for the fourth time. It would not do for Alistair to see the pentacles she had chalked onto the floorboards.

Somebody knocked at the door.

It was Alistair, of course. Morrigan had known that he would come, despite all his protestations to the contrary.

She held the door wide for him and smiled. "Come in."

Alistair slunk through the door. He leaned against the wall as far away from Morrigan as he could get.

"I did wonder why you stayed," he said, as if continuing a conversation they had begun very long time ago. "I don't suppose this was your plan from the very beginning."

"That is my own business." Morrigan told him.

Alistair's armor clanked nervously as he shifted. He wore all of his mail, save for the helmet. He looked for all the world like he was expecting an attack. Maybe he was.

Morrigan poised herself with a finger on her pointed chin and watched him inquisitively. She reminded herself that she was a Witch of the Wilds and that Alistair was merely a king.

Morrigan had always known that it was her destiny to perform the ritual. She would have carried it out if she had had to bed Sten. However, the look on Alistair's face made the whole thing almost worthwhile. She savored his expression like a fine wine.

Alistair glanced at the bed, then at Morrigan, and then back at the bed. His face was flushed."So how do we do this?"

"Did they not teach you in the Tower?"Morrigan teased. When Alistair blushed even redder, she walked over to the bed and patted the covers. "This is what I like about you, Alistair. You speak first and think later," She considered. "Or maybe not at all."

"Why don't you crawl into a bush and die?" Alistair suggested.

"Do you hate me?" Morrigan asked him curiously.

"I don't hate you. I don't understand you. At all."

"Ah." She smiled. "I am the least of the things you do not understand."

"Look. I don't have to understand you. I just have to fuck you. Can we please just get on with it?"

"Patience, my king." Morrigan said mockingly.

Alistair's voice was weary, but he rose to the bait like a trout to worms. "You don't really think that. You don't think I should be king."

Morrigan shrugged. "Kings mean nothing in the wilds." Privately, she thought that a nug would make a better king than Alistair. _Best that I say nothing for fear I ruin the mood, _she thought_. Such as it is._ "But no matter. Let us attempt the ritual." 

"Do we have to sacrifice a chicken or something?" Alistair asked uneasily. His hand hovered an inch from the hilt of his sword.

Morrigan noticed the movement and frowned. She was confident that she could use her magic to block any move, but she had no wish to make a mess. Besides, one of the ritual's most basic requirements was that Alistair had to be actually alive to perform it. "Relax", she purred. "It has all been arranged."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Alistair said morosely. His hand moved away from his sword, but he madeno attempt to remove his armor. "Dark magic, I'll be bound."

She smiled. "Dark magic is such a harsh term, don't you think? Say merely that it is old magic." That was not the proper term, but there was no magic older than sex magic. And Alistair might balk if he knew that he was participating-willingly, no less-in a blood magic ritual.

Alistair sighed. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he said as he removed his gloves and then his vambraces. "You're not going to turn me into..." he searched for words, "a mouse or something?"

Morrigan glanced at the bed, at Alistair, and at the large gap still between the two. "If this was going to turn you into a mouse, I would have told you before."

"No, you wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't," she agreed. "But the ritual is no more and no less than I have told you."

Alistair sighed once more, with feeling. "I don't want the wardens to die," he said as he unbuckled his sword belt. "That's the only reason I'm doing this." The sword joined the gloves on the floor.

As chat-up lines went, Morrigan had heard worse. Oghren's, for example. "You seem reluctant," she told him.

"And you're surprised?"

"Have you-"

"Have I _what_?"

"I believe our dwarfish companion refers to it as 'tapping the midnight still'. A most curious euphemism. Do you even _like _women?"

Alistair paused in the act of unfastening his breastplate. His blush, which had almost vanished, rose like a crimson tide. "Er. Yes. I have. Of course," he added hastily. "And I do like women, for your information. Just not you."

"I thought best to be sure," she said practically.

Alistair's breastplate hit the flagstones with a crash. His backplate followed. "And this is supposed to make me _want_ to-to-with you?" He made several instructive hand gestures to replace the words he had omitted.

Morrigan shrugged. She had no practice in making men-or anyone else for that matter-feel at ease.

Alistair sighed. He went to work on his sabatons. "Have _you_-" He slid to a stop under Morrigan's piercing glare. "Um, of course you have. Forget I said that."

Morrigan sidled closer. "Of course. Haven't you heard the tales? The Witches of the Waste can make men dance to their tune like puppets."

"I was trying to forget them." Alistair said. He had removed all of his plate armor, which meant that he was still clad in a mail shirt, padded jacket and breeches, shirt, small clothes and boots. He showed no sign of removing more.

Morrigan sighed. "Time passes," she said pointedly. When Alistair showed no sign of launching into action, she removed her own shirt. She wore nothing underneath.

Alistair, raised as a Templar Knight, hastily averted his eyes. When she did not move, his gaze crept back. "You..."

"We cannot do this clothed," she said, irritated for the first time. Did he think that she enjoyed it? It was true that she was enjoying very much the sight of Alistair discomfited, but she could have achieved it easily without removing a single item of clothing. "Kindly remove your garments. Time grows short. I can assist you, if need be."

Alistair hastily pulled his mail shirt over his head. His voice drifted from the neck. "I can do it myself."

He yanked the mail shirt off and dumped it on the top of the small mountain of armor. His hair was tangled; his face flushed. As he raised his head he caught sight of her and returned his gaze to the floor.

Morrigan sat down on the bed. "They're just breasts. Even Templars must have heard of them by now. Presumably you did not tup your previous conquests through a sheet?"

Alistair blushed harder. "You're not making this any more enjoyable, you know."

"On the contrary. I am enjoying it immensely."

"I should have known this would happen."

"What?"

"That you'd taunt me. Andraste's flaming sword! You're beautiful, you know. It's a shame you're such a bitch."

Morrigan did not take offence. It was not be the first time she had been insulted in such a way. Most people did not understand. She had been born in the wilds, where the only law was that the fittest survived and the weak perished. She was prepared to do whatever it takes to get what she wanted. To survive.

"I can blow out the candle, if you like," she suggested.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," Alistair said without conviction as he unlaced his breeches.

Morrigan removed the rest of her clothes. It did not take long. Alistair was wriggling out of his shirt as she finished. She lay in the candlelight and watched him strip. "This will not be the most bizarre thing my mother bade me do," she said.

"This is _not_ a good time to talk about your mother."

Morrigan shrugged. "Come to bed," she suggested.

Alistair winced, but he complied. Morrigan blew out the candle and lay there in the dark as he climbed in beside her. The rope mattress of the bed groaned, but it held. She thought of the wilds, of the winds howling in the dark, and wished herself back there. It was a far more honest world than the world of

men, dwarves and elves. Alistair would have died in the Wilds before he could walk, much less wield a sword. His awkward charm and blue eyes would not help him there.

She rolled towards him, reached down ...and touched fabric. 'You are still clothed," she hissed.

"Just smallclothes."

She saw the gleam of his amulet at his neck. "Did the Templars not tell you that you must take _everything_ off when you lay with a woman?"

"I hate you." Alistair said.

"The feeling is certainly mutual. It is fortunate that love is not required for the ceremony,' Morrigan murmured. She had expected him to remove his smallclothes immediately, but he fiddled instead with the clasp of his necklace. "Hurry up,"

"Aren't you supposed to be muttering sweet nothings into my ears?"

She reached for the amulet herself. "I am not sweet. Hold still. Let me take this off."

"Leave it."

"It cannot stay on." She flicked the amulet-a cheap pendant of Andraste's Flame cast in silver-with her fingernail. "It will interfere with the ritual."

"I knew it!" Alistair said triumphantly. "Dark magic!"

"Shut up."Morrigan said. The amulet was old, and hence difficult to remove. At last she unfastened the cord. The necklace fell free. Morrigan placed it on the dish of the candle-holder that hung over the bed. "Hold still," she said again, and disrobed him efficiently, playing the page. Alistair seemed more concerned about the fate of the necklace than of his smallclothes, and Morrigan decided that she should make some attempt to put the Templar at his ease. "Don't worry," she said as she threw his breechclout on the floor. "Your amulet is safe. And we have more important things to do."

He raised a hand and touched the necklace where it rested in the sconce, which irritated Morrigan even more. "It's the only thing I have left of my mother."

Morrigan filed the information away for future conversation. "I thought we had an agreement not to mention mothers?' she purred."Let us begin. The ceremony will not wait on us."

"Maker help me," Alistair groaned, and he kissed her. Kissing was not exactly what Morrigan had in mind, but it was a start. She smiled and opened her mouth. She tasted mead and sugar on his tongue, and knew that he had been drinking. She did not much like kissing in general-it was too intimate for her tastes, but Alistair seemed to enjoy it. He liked _something_, that much was obvious. Morrigan was not surprised. Her body was a weapon and like her magic, she used it well.

_Men_, she thought, _are shallow things._

He did not move as she straddled him, using slim pale fingers to encircle his wrists. She had thought he would resist but he did not move, bound by chains of duty stronger than any she could fashion.

"Why do you hate me so?" she whispered.

"You only care about yourself," he said, and groaned as she began to move.

"As do you," she pointed out, "As does everyone. I am merely more honest."

"Honest is not the word I-_ah_-would use."

"Oh?" She rocked. "What word _would_ you use?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, as venomously as ever; as she were not riding him. "Maleficar. ." He spat the words in rhythm with her movements, and groaned again.

Morrigan leaned closer, amused. "Maleficar? That is not the insult you seem to think it is. So..._Templar_. Will you storm my castle? Will you pierce me on your sword? Will you drag me to the circle in chains?"

"Witch," he said. "They would not want you."

Morrigan laughed. She knew that she was not making the act any easier for him. But it _was_ funny. Although it was perhaps understandable that Alistair, usually so quick to see the humor in any situation, did not see the absurdity inherent in this one. "You are a very strange man," she told him.

"And you are a weird crazy woman."

'You've never spoken to me this much before."

"Tonight has-_uh_-only confirmed my opinion."

'You talk too much," Morrigan told him, although she knew that the conversation was a shield to cover Alistair's unease at lying naked in her bed. She almost felt sorry for him, and then dismissed the emotion as being unworthy as a Witch of the Waste. 'And we have wasted too much time. You seem ready. Now let us begin this properly."

"In Maferath's name," Alistair swore, but he did.

His lovemaking was angry and resentful. Morrigan had expected nothing less. Washed by some strange sea, she urged him on, digging her nails into his back. Alistair was mercifully quick about the deed. He moaned as he spent inside her, a soft broken sound, and cried out another woman's name.

Morrigan pretended not to notice. Moments later the spell inscribed under the rugs on the floor took effect, and she gritted her teeth as she experienced an unexpected peak of pleasure.

Eyes still closed, she lay motionless in the bed and listened to Alistair's curses as he retrived his amulet and gathered up his armor from the floor. She toyed with casting a love spell upon him, something similar to the magic Flemeth worked on her own consorts. The thought of the King of Ferelden rapping on her door every night, hollow eyed and gaunt with love of her, amused her. But the thought stayed where it should, in her head. There was no time, even if she had wanted to, and she would not take the risk that such magic would interfere with the spell she had already cast. Besides, Morrigan had never needed anything from a man that she could not provide for herself.

_Until now_, she thought wryly as Alistair stumbled out the door.

She did not know where he went to and she did not care. She had what she wanted. The ritual had worked. She had conceived. The child would be a daughter, tall, with her mother's wolf-yellow eyes and the sandy hair of her father.

_Although I hope that she will not have Alistair's sense of humor_, she thought.

Morrigan lay alone in the dark and rubbed her hand over her flat stomach. "Sleep now," she told her child, and smiled to herself.

_Yellow eyes, sandy hair...and the soul of an Old God. _

Finis.

"And evermore he had a sovereign price,

And though that he were worthy, he was wise

And of his port* as meek as was a maid

He never yet had any vileness said

In all his life to whatsoever wight**,

He was a very perfect, gentle knight."

Geoffrey Chaucer-The Caunterbury Tales(tr.)

Author's Note:

Written to celebrate my completion of Dragon Age: Origins. Started out as straight smut, and morphed into kink and conversation. I do love the dialogue options in this game.

* _port_; deportment, attitude.

**_wight_: person.


End file.
